


The Library and the Labyrinth

by GretchenSinister



Series: My Top 3 Cavity Fics [1]
Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:35:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22610350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: Original Prompt: "Honestly, aside from Jack, Toothiana is the scariest motherfucker around. I mean, she’s PLEASED when she gets teeth that still have blood on them. She has an army. And unlike hope, dream, and wonder, memory is not necessarily nice or good.She’s the guardian of memory, which means she knows as much about the real world fears that children face as Pitch does.Either she’s secretly entered an alliance with Pitch, or she and Pitch use each other for their own gain. I just want them playing a dangerous game with each other."Tooth has something Pitch needs. She decides she needs him more.
Relationships: Pitch Black/Toothiana
Series: My Top 3 Cavity Fics [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1626877
Kudos: 10
Collections: Cavity Short Fics





	The Library and the Labyrinth

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr on 7/25/2013.

He is a king, and she is a queen. He has no subjects any longer, but she now has one.  
  
She knows that there’s no way to get rid of him—of Fear. That there shouldn’t be a way. She knows all too well that there are plenty of things out there for a child to be afraid of. She can tell, in the memories, that sometimes being afraid helps. So she does not send him away.  
  
Pitch, for his part, does not have so clear a reason for his uneasy alliance with Toothiana. His mind is not like hers. Where she possesses a well-ordered palace of a library, he has a labyrinth of ever-shifting passages, full of glimpsed impressions and strange flashes of color, half-heard strains of music and ruined architectural fragments. What he finds in this labyrinth tells him that Toothiana has something he needs, though he does not know what it is. It tells him that it is something he cannot take by force or trickery. He must stay near her, must not destroy her, until he obtains this thing.  
  
After some time, the labyrinth begins to tell him that she is beautiful. Then again, it tells him many things, and not all of them make sense.  
  
She is sure she does not love him, and he is almost sure that he does not love her. How can love have anything to do with what they are? A once-woman, now the birdlike keeper of the memories of the world, and a once-man, now the nearly incorporeal embodiment of the world’s fears. Love is for humans, and neither of them have been human for a very long time, if they ever truly were.  
  
His goal rolls down a side passage in the labyrinth, and he helps her preen. She wonders if perhaps a few things have not been mis-shelved in her library.  
  
When she looks at him, she sees his absence of color like death in contrast with her vibrant greens and blues, relieved only by a slight touch of gold like a last wish around his pupils. She sees a man now not fully in control of himself, and who may perhaps never be in control of himself again.  
  
One day, when she looks at him, she looks at him now knowing that his black hair is soft, that his gray skin is smooth, and that his days as a man are not entirely forgotten.  
  
When he looks at her, he sees her brilliant, unashamed colors, like a promise of everything that has now been forbidden to him. He knows she is burdened, but all he can see is her freedom. He sees a gatekeeper, and the only Guardian who understands time, in all its bone-gnawing glory.  
  
One day, when he looks at her, he looks at her now knowing how to touch her in places she would not let him preen, that magenta eyes may soften even for him, and that her days as a woman are not entirely forgotten.  
  
He wishes to know more of these things, and his first goal is forgotten entirely, for the sake of loneliness ended. The labyrinth tells him it does not matter. After all, he has forgotten so many things over so many years.  
  
Eventually, Tooth wonders if perhaps this king consents to be her subject because he was looking for his memories. She has them, of course. She knows why there is gold in his eyes. But she would prefer not to give him a reason to leave, so she does not mention this to him.   
  
He is necessary as he is. He is necessary ~~to her~~ as he is.


End file.
